by admin | Jul 28, 2026 | Behind the Bucking Chutes
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
Who we are as Christian men should be defined by Jesus’s teachings, the rest of the Bible and the work of the Holy Spirit as he works inside us as he helps us become more like Jesus.
There’s a real push from the political left against what they call toxic masculinity and many ideas from the Bible like man’s position in the family, upset people with those views who find those ideas offensive.
Then the political right pushes back against empathy, treating it like it’s a sign of weakness and goes against masculinity. It offends people with those views to suggest a man should care more about giving a family food than why they haven’t worked hard enough on their own to have what they need.
But let’s just focus on masculinity as a whole. A Christian man or cowboy’s masculinity can’t be toxic when he’s following Jesus but we have to be sure it’s his teachings we’re following, not our own versions. That’s where ideas that empathy is entirely wrong creep in.
There’s no weakness in loving our neighbors. We can’t confuse that with the word “love” as an emotion toward your neighbor. We don’t even have to like them. In this context, love is an action and takes real strength; especially when it’s our enemies we’re also called to love. Love as action is helping others, encouraging them, correcting harmful behavior, speaking what is good, right and true, building a home for a family in Africa, volunteering at a homeless shelter near you or taking food to the neighbor you don’t like when his wife is in the hospital. And especially, it is pointing others to a saving and life-transforming faith in Jesus Love is in how we treat others, what we do for people and what we say to them.
Following Jesus will strengthen any man. He will take you places you never thought you could or would go and show you gifts and abilities you never knew you had. When they’re used to honor God and point others to Jesus, they can’t ever be toxic. But Jesus challenges us.
Luke 6:27-28 But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.
There’s plenty of direction for how we’re to treat everyone from family to neighbors to strangers but the hardest might actually be doing good for someone who hates us. Living out just those two verses isn’t for the weak.
1 Corinthians 16:13 Be on guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong.
Cowboys and bull hands, horsemen, cattlemen and ranchers, don’t let our society’s view of masculinity or our lack of understanding of what the Bible teaches about love keep you from pursuing a life-changing relationship with Jesus. The Bible calls us to be strong, firm and courageous in our faith. There’s neither weakness or toxicity in any of that.
Cowboys of the Cross is a rodeo/bull riding ministry that leads cowboy church services at events and maintains an online presence to share the gospel and make disciples among the ranch and rodeo community. They can be found at CowboysOfTheCross.com
by admin | Jun 23, 2026 | Behind the Bucking Chutes
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
There continues to be a push against what it means to be a family, parents, fathers and men. Christians share the western world with a progressive culture that looks at the world differently from Biblical beliefs and wants to remove what it calls social constructs of what it means to be fathers and mothers. They are taking away biological distinctions and removing terms like father and mother and replacing them with “non-gestating” and “gestating” parent.
For Christians, the Bible is distinct on topics of gender roles and, of especial interest to the cowboy crowd, what it means to be fathers and men.
Not everyone in the rodeo community comes from good parents or had good fathers. There are many guys competing to prove something to themselves because in the rodeo arena, it’s them competing against the animal whether it’s a calf bolting across the arena or a bucking horse. It’s a chance to step out on their own, exert themselves and accomplish something not everyone can do and stand proud as men.
Many go on to become fathers but can be left without the role model they need to know how to be good dads themselves.
But the Bible gives us a clear role model to follow with a clear distinction of just what a father is, no matter how much a culture around us might want to remove those standards.
It’s Jesus Christ himself.
The issue and topic was raised at a father’s day service I got to attend at Castine Church all the way in the midwest in Ohio and much of this message is from that sermon by Pastor Greg Hyre.
While Jesus gives us so many examples of what Christians are to follow throughout scripture, we formally recognize God as not just our creator, but our father.
But Jesus makes something clear to his disciples in John.
John 14:6-11 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”8 Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10
Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.
Jesus is God and God is Jesus.
There is no other example we need to turn to in order to understand what it looks like to be a father.
Jesus is that example and whether we are fathers or men, whether or not we had great dads of our own, it is Jesus who we should be striving to follow. Nothing more, nothing less.
by admin | Jun 10, 2026 | James
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
Don’t judge me.
Since the Christian faith is the dominant faith in the cowboy communities from ranching to rodeos, the idea that calling out someone’s sin is judging them is a common confusion. The reality is, the majority of the cowboy crowd identify as Christians, but far fewer are plugged into a good church or take the time to study God’s word and understand it better.
That’s why, just like most of the unbelieving world, there’s this misconception that when we talk about sin, we’re judging the people living out the sin we’re bringing up.
But James concludes his letter quite abruptly with a lesson in just one reason why have to be able to talk about someone else’s sin.
James 5:19-20 My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, 20 remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins.
If our faith is real, we’re going to live it out and James has used the bulk of his letter to outline ways that a Christian lives out his faith describing every action being proof his faith is real; how the rich handle their power, how important the words we speak our, how to care for others who have less than us.
As he concludes his letter, he wants us to watch out for those whose are engaged in sin, to help them turn away from their sin and toward a Christ-like life.
If we see that as judging and reject their efforts, then we risk missing out on eternity in Heaven through a saving faith in Jesus. If we can’t talk about sin without being accused of judging, we can’t share the gospel. Sin has to be discussed in the open.
And here, James wants us to help others move away from their sin. If they are already believers, the goal is to restore them to a focus on their saving faith and living out that faith in the ways James has taught us throughout his letter.
They may not like it, but no one feels like their actions are being judged when a rodeo judge or producer fines them for breaking the rules. The goal of the fine is to correct the behavior, like swearing in the arena for the crowd to hear when missing a catch or entering and not showing up.
The point of the fine isn’t to run a contestant off, but to encourage right behavior that helps the event run smoothly or to remain pleasing to the crowd in attendance.
A lot more is at stake for Christians and James says our correction can lead them to saving faith in Jesus with everlasting life in Heaven. It’s the blood Jesus shed on the cross that covers our “multitude of sins” but our correction is what God can use to lead someone to repentance and salvation.
by admin | May 28, 2026 | James
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
Whether you’re breeding and training horses, raising cattle or competing in rodeo, at first look, it’s a lot of solitary work. But if you go out to the barn and you find your horse is lame or has a bad gash on his leg, you call a veterinarian for help. You get advice on supplements from the feed store and when it comes time to branding cattle, you have a whole team of help to work through the process.
In the roughstock side of rodeo, it’s you versus that bucking horse or bull, but you still need someone to open the gate when you nod your head.
There’s much in our lives that we go through alone, even when we have families, we sometimes keep struggles to ourselves. But James shows us the importance of community through prayer.
James 5: 13-18 Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. 14 Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. 17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. 18 Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.
These verses are sometimes used to suggest that with enough faith and prayer, healing is guaranteed but we know even from the first chapter of James, that the only thing we can count on in our broken and fallen world, is that we are going to face trials. Sometimes the healing we desire or the escape from our struggle doesn’t come or it doesn’t come easy.
We know that God will turn a trial into something good, but now, near the end of James, we also know we aren’t supposed to be the only person praying and we aren’t supposed to go through a trial alone.
And, we’re supposed share our joy with others, as James sells us to sing praise when God works in our lives, which shares that praise with everyone.
We’re in community together, good and bad.
When I’ve sinned, confessing it to others and praying together is going to strengthen our position against repeating that sin and we are going to draw on strength from others more mature than us as they pray for us. James isn’t specific if the healing he mentions is from physical illness and disease or a spiritual healing but he’s clear that there is power in our pray for others and being part of a community of believers.
by admin | May 13, 2026 | James
You go to buy a truck from a used card lot but when you get there, the mileage is higher than what you saw in their online advertisement and you can clearly see it’s leaking power steering fluid when the salesman told you there were no leaks before you drove an hour to the lot to drive it.
Maybe it still looks like a good deal, but the trust is gone. What else is wrong that you haven’t noticed yet?
What happens when you enter a rodeo knowing there’s $4,000 in added money but you get there, win the deal and get shorted because the gate money was bad that night and the producer cut the added money in half to make up his losses? The trust is gone and his next $4,000 event is the same night as a $1,000-added deal a half-hour further away with a producer who has always paid out what was offered. What about a finals that when you get there after competing all year has half the prizes and money they bragged would be up for grabs all season? There’s a reasonable chance you’re buying a card for another association the next year.
Integrity counts and James tells us we better take it seriously.
James 5: 12 Above all, my brothers and sisters, do not swear—not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. All you need to say is a simple “Yes” or “No.” Otherwise you will be condemned.
James appears to be reinforcing what Jesus himself taught about oaths in what we know as The Sermon on the Mount in Matthew.
Matthew 5:34-37 But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. 36 And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. 37 All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.
James tells us that if we swear we will do something, we come under God’s judgment when we fail to do it and Jesus tells us that our dishonesty comes from Satan. It makes sense that James warns us then that God would condemn us for our dishonesty.
They both break it down very simply. Let your “yes” be “yes” and your “no” be “no.” We should be so trustworthy that our yes or no answer to someone is all we need. We shouldn’t need to swear an oath to add weight behind a promise we make. If we fail to live up to that promise, we’ve made it even worse.
Now, it’s important to remember grace in this situation. When we have a saving faith in Jesus, God no longer condemns us for our sin, but we’re also told in Romans 6:1-2 to not continue to sin so that there can receive more of God’s grace.
Sometimes we’re backed into a corner or something unforeseen has happened and we give in to the temptation to sin by not going through with what we said we would do or we simply are unable to do it. Yes, God’s grace and forgiveness covers us, but when our saving faith is real, there will be repentance. It can be a simple confession that we failed with a sincere apology for being dishonest or we can take steps to make things right.
All of those steps can help restore our integrity.
As Christians, we need to be trustworthy. We have the most important piece of knowledge an unsaved person can receive and that’s the Gospel; God’s plan for salvation and the difference between an eternity in Heaven or Hell. If we can’t be trusted, how can we convince someone that we’re speaking the truth about their salvation?
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